Recipes

Kia ora koutou and I hope you are all feeling fine on this here Monday eve,

Or have you got the Sunday horrors too? I get ’em every weekend now but I have many and varied ways in which I ‘deal’ with them. The best used to be to just day-drink. Ahhhh… just keep a nice slow beer buzz on all day. But, you know, parenting, and being old and shite means children to feed and hangovers that last for DAYS now. I’m nearly 40 you know. Fuck it.

Some of the things I do; I rush about madly trying to ‘get the most out of the weekend’ OR I lie around doing absolutely nothing until nagged sufficiently by children or the grumpy Dutchman. I try to organise ‘good for the gut’ food in advance for the week/I shave/dye/trim or wash any hair that catches my attention (no I don’t shave my legs in winter because cold and the GD complains but he puts up with it just fine – a hairy ankle isn’t going to put my man off his dinner). I read books (ha ha – I plan to read books but I have mentioned I have children haven’t I?). I clean things randomly – very randomly. I try to spend as much time with family where possible AND I try to catch up with friends. I try not to think about work until I really really have to. It’s quite a bit to fit in to two days.

It really makes you wonder why we work for FIVE days and only rest for TWO days. Surely we’ve got that ass about face?

This weekend in between family stuff I have been to the movies with a friend who wanted to escape me from Nana and work stress bless her – I highly recommend ‘Amy’ the doco about Amy Winehouse – it is a tear-jerker for sure – not a dry eye in the house. It’s probably very wrong, considering her struggles with addiction, but I did leave really wanting a glass of wine and a ciggie…. Lucky Nana didn’t have any.

This evening for dinner I made a yummy recipe that I like to make every now and then; Salmon Patties with (random) greens. It’s great because it makes a bunch of them and I can have them for lunch the next day. It’s not my recipe and I’ve added and taken out some stuff to suit my ouchy gut – a good one to play with.

You need

two 200gm cans of pink salmon

a couple of Kumara, peeled and cut in to cubes

2 tblsp of Capers (drained)

a handful of coriander chopped

spring onion chopped up (I think you are meant to use red onion but I can’t tolerate it)

1-2 eggs whisked

breadcrumbs (I use almond meal because gluten)

you could add peas/grated courgette – although courgette would make it wet so add more almond meal I reckon

salt and pepper

coconut oil

Steam and mash the kumara, wait to cool then add the salmon, capers, coriander, almond meal, egg, spring onion and any other veges you are adding.

Roll in to balls, then flatten in to patties, coat in almond meal/breadcrumbs and shallow fry in coconut oil until golden brown. They are GREAT with mayonnaise. You should get about 8. Serve with random steamed greens – we had beans and spinach and broccoli.

Recently my eldest has become obsessed with the idea of hibernation – following an article that we read about a 90 yr old tortoise that had been given wheels after her front legs were EATEN OFF HER by rats in hibernation. He is bummed, as am I, that humans don’t get to hibernate. That we, as a society, tend to look down upon people who take to their beds for winter – refusing to get up for anything other than food or ablutions. That we throw around labels like ‘lazy’, ‘unmotivated’ or ‘depressed’ simply because someone cannot bear the thought of crawling out of bed on another cold and rainy day for work or school or whatever. Well I think that attitude sucks tbh. Obvs it would be even better if we could slow our heartbeats down to one beat per minute and not require food or the bathroom during this time period as well and really settle in for good snooze (imagine the un-intentional weight loss and gut healing that would happen too without all the food! I’d wake up able to tackle all of the delicious-ness pain free!).

However in the absence of human hibernation, because – you know – I have to work and raise my children and boring responsible shit like that, there are a couple of things I do when the (slightly) colder days of Autumn kick in, to keep myself snuggly and at optimum comfort level no matter where I am.

The first thing is manipulation of the wardrobe. In order to ‘take the duvet with me’ wherever I go, I employ two rules when clothing myself in the morning;

Volume

Layers

The larger and more shapeless the dress or pants the better – like swimming around in a sheet – and then if you add an oversized cardi or coat it’s just like a walking around in a well dressed bed. If it’s raining I wear my rubber high top chucks. Interesting shoes and jewellery are key so you don’t look like a toddler who escaped daycare. This look is neither sexy or even vaguely figure flattering but it is damned comfortable. I also like to mix up fabrics and textures, wool with silk with leather etc. Very satisfying, very comfortable. I feel like I can cope with almost any weather Mother Nature throws at me and my clothes feel like they are giving me a cuddle all day long – Bliss. I’m really IN to clothes – I don’t know if you’ve picked up on that yet? Really, really in to clothes. Totes shallow and totes ok with that.

Number 2? Food. Comfort food to be exact. Cups of tea with toast. Hot soup. Roast dinners with heaps of roasted root veges. Mince and baked potatoes. Gf Pasta or rice dishes. This is not a diet that is kind to the waistline, but as I am wearing what amounts to a silk muu-muu most days anyway it’s a win win!

Speaking of food, I have been better at being sugar free for the latter part of this week. I had a splitting headache on Thursday to show for it which was to be expected but still sucked. And I have been trolling through old recipes.

Here is my favourite cold-weather breakfast, Brown rice porridge;

One cup brown rice

400mls full cream coconut milk

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tblsp brown sugar or coconut sugar

Cook the rice using the absorption method – bring to the boil in three cups of water, turn down and simmer for about 15 minutes or until most of the water has gone.

Add the coconut milk, sugar and cinnamon and simmer for another 1o minutes

Store in the fridge in a plastic container, this will yield about 6 servings. The sugar doesn’t bother me because I figure it’s such a minimal amount when split 6 ways. I eat it heated up with a banana cut up on it or frozen berries (low fructose) to add some fruit. This brekkie keeps me full until lunchtime! Yum!

I’m not doing so well at the whole not eating sugar thing again. I am trying really hard not to think about it and I do really well until the afternoon – which is normal I guess. I have cut out the coffee again, and am feeling the mid afternoon ‘slump’ HARD. Meetings after school don’t help of course! Taking it slow – being mindful, non-judgemental and kind to myself while I try. That sort of shit.

So tonight instead of taking myself ‘for an evening walk’ to the dairy for a little ‘pick-me-up’ I decided to try something else. You remember the goodie bags from yesterday’s IQS event? Well, they had a cacao butter sample in them and I have always wanted to try making my own ‘healthier’ dark chocolate – mwahahaha…

I asked Aunty Google and found this recipe on the chockchick.com, I adapted it because I didn’t have Agave syrup (and SW and her crew don’t like it anyways so there) and after a tweak mid-experiment I think I have a hit! Here’s what I did;

you need;

100gms Cacao butter

6 tablespoons of raw cacao powder

a pinch of sea salt

sweetener of choice

vanilla essence and peppermint essence

Melt the cacao butter on a double boiler like you would with any choc you want to melt – it melts fast so watch it and don’t let it burn.

Add the Cacao powder and mix with a metal whisk (cos’ the recipe said to that’s why) until it is all beautifully blended.

This is where I added the pinch of sea salt and a smidge of vanilla essence.

Now, she uses Agave or whatever, and I didn’t have any so I thought I would try two tablespoons of the Rice Malt syrup that I got in my goodie bag but I was dubious; Previous experiments with this in baking have failed dismally.

I then split the mix in half and added a few drops of peppermint essence to one batch. You totally don’t have to do this – you could just go with all one flavour – it’s your life man don’t let me tell you how to live it.

Once it is all blended pour in to your mould/cupcake cases and pop in the freezer. They are ready for ‘sampling’ after about 20? mins. (I poured the peppermint half in to green cupcake cases so I would know which ones were which).

My first batch failed. I tried them after the required 20 mins and they were bitter as – no sweetness whatsoever and a bit ‘muddy’ tasting. Yes I know proper super dark choc is a little muddy but there should have been a ‘hint’ of sweet you know?

SO I melted them again – yes – it worked, I did it in two halves – the peppermint-y half and the plain, and added MAPLE SYRUP. Just a splash in each half and refroze it. Whacked them back in the freezer and let them set for 20 mins.

SUCCESS!!! Delicious and in danger of not lasting the evening. The peppermint ones are especially nice. The are very quick to melt so they will live in the freezer… but not for long….

So I finished the block of dark chocolate. It was inevitable. Over the course of the week and when I think about it, it may have been the cause of my unshakeable headache all week. But I don’t regret a single square. I enjoyed every second of it and was ‘mindful’ of every bite. (you see what I did there?) Part of my reckless lack of food-guilt came from having logged in to the forums on IQS today only to find like-minded women who were not in fact skipping through fields of tall grass and flowers all skinny and glowing and feeling all unburdened from their hopeless addiction to sugar. No. Like me these women felt pretty much the same. No real weight loss to speak of. Skin the same, spotty or not, and mostly they were staring down the barrel of a lifetime without Whittakers and thinking about ending it all. Like me their cravings had not in fact fucked off in to the dark and gloomy past and they were having little tiny battles with themselves every day.

These women, like me had been logging on intermittently to the forums – which are described to subscribers as a great support and most of what we are paying for – and finding testimonial after testimonial of ‘AMAZING RESULTS’ and ‘I HAVE SO MUCH MORE ENERGY NOW I RAN A MARATHON BEFORE BREAKFAST’ and ‘I USED TO BE 300 kilos BUT NOW I’M ONLY 34 kilos AND I AM SO MUCH HAPPIER NOW’ (even if my body can’t support the weight of my head). Disheartening to say the least when, like me, you are plodding along and every thing feels sort of ‘Meh?’.

Please don’t get me wrong – I enjoyed the change up of food, and I mostly signed up for food ideas – not weight loss and glowing skin – but a girl can dream can’t she? And the temptation to beat myself up over not doing it right somehow has been strong. But reading the thread gave me heart. I think it is helpful to hear all of the experiences – not just the ones that serve to promote the program itself and I have to acknowledge the respectful and – yes supportive – way the moderators of the threads let the conversation happen and the legitimacy they gave to the way these contributors were feeling. Not everyone who gives up sugar will lose weight, not everyone who gives up sugar will notice massive changes in their health, not everyone will start glowing like a pregnant supermodel on a macrobiotic diet.

And probably there are a multitude of reasons but I think what you were eating before you start the program has a lot to do with it. One man was drinking 6 cans of pepsi max a day. A DAY! And he lost 32 kilos in 8 weeks. No fucking shit.

So. I am going to try to keep sugar out of my diet. I am going to keep cooking some of the family favourites out of the program and I am going to remember the headache I have had all week from the dark chocolate. But I am not going to beat myself up over the odd slip. I am not going to see my lack of weight loss as failure and I am going to share with you the best bliss ball recipe I have found on the magical interwebs. I can’t take credit for this one and I can’t remember where I got it – sorry! I haven’t been making them this year because they have dried fruit in them (strictly banned by IQS) but I have decided these are better for me and the fam than shit, nutrient deficient junk sugar and if I am going to ‘slip’ I would rather it was something I had made myself.

You will need;

1 cup of medjool dates (pitted and chopped)

1 cup almonds

1/3 cup of raw cacao powder

1/3 cup of coconut oil

1/2 cup of shredded coconut

1 tablespoon of chia seeds

Soak the dates in warm water for ten minutes if they are hard (don’t bother if they are soft and squishy). Add the nuts, cacao, shredded coconut, coconut oil and chia seeds to the food processor and blitz. Add dates to the mixture and blitz again. Let the mixture sit for ten minutes. Roll into balls (about a soup spoon worth each time). Roll the balls in more shredded coconut. Pop in to the freezer for about an hour before eating – I keep mine in the freezer – best place for them!

They are just the thing after dinner or for a mid morning snack – yum!

Ooooh I almost forgot! Guess what arrived in the mail today! Almost a good enough reason to take up coffee again ha ha

I feel better today thank goodness. I didn’t get out of bed for Yoga this morning but that was vanity – my hair still looked good from my appointment yesterday and I didn’t want to get it all hot and mussed up ha ha – Yoga tonight though to make up for it.

Nothing to report food wise – I had a good day – no glutening – no starving moments because I remembered to pack snacks AND I went out for lunch with my HOD to a place I know I can eat at. OOh! I forgot – I tried my first Kombucha tea. It was yummy. BUT I didn’t like the snotty little piece of ‘mother’ (maybe?) floating around in it – was a bit gross – but I get the impression that it was meant to have been strained a wee bit more carefully because Katy’s didn’t have any snotty bits.

Today I got my first email from I Quit Sugar; my week one shopping list, meal plan and recipes and all the other stuff you need to set up. Had a happy twenty minutes printing everything off and binding it and sorting out clear-files – I do like a little play with stationary. The recipes look good and varied – and all can be adapted to not have gluten and dairy – although I might have to find substitutes for the salads etc for the first wee bit, until I start to re-introduce raw food.

Anyway – even if you are not doing the 8 week plan the website is a mine of information for recipes, low fructose/high fructose info and she has a couple of e-books with recipes etc that aren’t going to break the bank. Here is the link;

My Facebook feed is so full of stuff about food now I am almost getting food fatigue! The coeliac disease group is great – I can be in the stupidmarket and ask about an ingredient and one of the members will have answered me within minutes! It’s great. And it’s good to know that other people out there are struggling with this stuff – it’s not just me! I thought I was really special needs when I started to list off the things that I would be avoiding in order to heal thyself, but there are a lot of people who have coeliacs like me and and other things as well. It’s really supportive – and it means less whinging to my friends and family! So lucky you guys 😉

This grrl seems really cool – she has a blog (way more fancy than mine!) and has lots of great info on it – I can only aspire to be as ‘bloggy cool’ as her.

Anyways… I’m off to sort out my shopping for the week, and to see if I can wrangle the GD in to cooking dinner while I go to the mall…

Am getting a bit antsy for snacks and sugar. It definitely didn’t help that the fruit I have been having has been kicking off the cravings again. I think I have been looking for a pick me up in the mornings and have been reaching for the smoothies instead of having the cooked breakfasts I should be planning for myself.

So tomorrow – in between getting my hair did, my lashes filled and going to work for a few hours – I am going to get the Pete Evans cook book that features lots of gluten and dairy and sugar-free recipes. Will also be (hopefully) getting heaps of recipes from the ‘I quit Sugar’ program which I am signing up for tonight. I will let you know how that goes, and whether it is worth trying it out for yourself – IMO anyway. There is a lot of hype around the program and I know that quitting sugar is the cool thing right now – for lots of good reasons – but what appealed to me about this program was the shopping lists and meal plans you get each week – and they can tailor them to be Gf and DF too. So it’s just another crutch for me for days like today when I am feeling weak and wanting to ‘just have a taste’ from the jar of nutella in the cupboard…

Outside of cravings and the usual, today was a rest day – I counted our walk and swim this afternoon as my exercise – but I am looking forward (as always) to boot camp tomorrow morning. Hopefully the new girl will come back and she can see that I’m just a really awkward, friendly, non-psycho who likes to meet new fun excercisey boot-camp people.. from a distance… and just grins weirdly…

Oh my god my legs hurt. And my ass and the rest. No boot camp for two weeks then two days in a row and I am suffering. I can’t even sit on the loo without holding on and using my arms to stand up slooooooooowllyyyyy. Ow Ow Ow! I hobbled around the zoo like an old lady today following the boys…. And yoga tomorrow. For my sins.

I am getting a little sick of the same green veges and salmon/chicken combos for my meals (and the same smoothie recipe over and over). So have resolved to not only collect recipes and good websites, but to actually try them out – and I want to try to make at least one new thing a week. We tried a new smoothie recipe yesterday and that was good – it did occur to me that I am using fruit in the smoothies and that goes against my fruit ban – soooooooooo. I don’t know – will research ‘low’ fruit recipes – maybe no banana.

Tonight I tried these ‘coconut flour biscuits’ (scones) and they smelled delicious – full of spring onion, parsley, thyme, basil and rosemary – it’s a shame they sucked. So dry. I do not have success with coconut flour. I am thinking that maybe if I subbed out the coconut flour with self raising Gf flour (the edmonds one is quite good) they might be chewy enough to be nice…

The grumpy Dutchman ate them but he is good to me, the rest of us couldn’t bear them, they boys left them on their plates and I may have thrown mine to the birds… Oh well.

This afternoon, after I broke down from my sugar withdrawal and inhaled a packet of Neurofen, and was feeling human again, I googled more smoothie recipes because I am getting a teeny tiny bit sick of my peanut butter chocolate smoothie…

And I found a green one that looked yum and tried it out. Typically if I offer the boys anything that looks even vaguely healthy or has evidence of green vegetables in it they run screaming to the Dairy for a nice comforting steak and cheese pie.

Tonight we had a breakthrough – they loved the ‘Kermit the frog’. I named it but it’s someones elses recipe of course. I got it from http://www.simplegreensmoothies.com in the ‘5 ingredients or less’ bit. I changed it up a wee bit – going by what we had in the fridge. Here it is;

1 cup Kale

1 cup baby Spinach

1 cup water

1 cup Almond milk

1.5 frozen banana

1 whole small avocado or half a big one

Whack the spinach and kale in the blender with the liquid and whizz until it’s whizzed. Then add the fruit and avocado and whizz it up some more – voila! (in the past I have not whizzed the leafy greens separately from the other bits and it has been bitsy and yuck – this time it was a revelation! not tiny bits of greenery in my teeth afterwards).

Then I told the kid it was a ‘Kermit the frog’ and, once I had calmed their fears that there was an actual frog in it – they drank it and Master 7 liked it! success! He said ‘Mum we can drink these in the morning after we go running eh?’ and I went all warm and fuzzy. We got him running shoes today so he is a bit keen on it.

That’s all from me – melting in the heat but loving it – withdrawing and aching and nearly died in boot camp this morning – got the shakes HARD. But, like I said, I know why and I know how long it will last roughly so I’m not freaked, just hanging out for it to be over. Another Bootcamp session tomorrow – on the beach so it will be lovely and good for my soul – if not my poor old shaky legs….

Urg. Sugar withdrawal is kicking in. And the Dairy and Sugar from Saturday night has manifested itself in a rash or red bumps/pimple things on my neck and shoulder and my face is SOOOO red. Feel pretty gross. So not pretty right now.

And on top of it all I have had a headache alllllllllllll day that I couldn’t shake. The sky is grey and it was cold too. I think the weather affects me more than I’d like. I don’t cope with grey skies very well.

On the positive – I had a lovely visit with my friend Cath and her two little lasses – they are super cutie cute and we had a lovely FREEZING walk round the Botanical gardens. I was going to go to Sumner and show myself around but it was too cold and I ended up in the mall….. I will try again tomorrow.

To try to ‘re-set’ I made us a delicious dinner – stir fried chicken and assorted veges. And I am currently fighting very strong cravings to eat ALL the fruit in the house. No fruit for me…. I need to get through the headaches and out the other side…..

It’s been an up-and-down 24 hours – with me having to remember quite hard not to have refined sugars and little trickies like that – bad habits have taken over and it will take a while to retrain. I spent all night last night, once the kids were in bed, going to the kitchen, opening the cupboards and fridge and then wandering back to the lounge defeated. I blame it on my free right hand – no wine glass occupying it….

I woke up this morning wanting to make something for breakkie that wasn’t an omelette or smoothie – and not toast which is my fave – because of the ‘crunchy’ bits.

There has been this recipe floating round on various do-gooder-healthy-recipe sites that had piqued my interest and this morning I got the lads all excited and said ‘hey mama’s gonna make banana pancakes – yum!’ cue excitement and ‘when are they ready mum!?’ (I’m not even off the couch yet).

You see the beauty of these pancakes is that they ONLY take two ingredients – I KNOW amazeballs huh – and ‘taste just like normal pancakes!’. I looked them up (thank you Aunty google) and got started. So NOT hard. I literally had to break three eggs and one and a half bananas into the blender and pulse. Then fry.

Voila! You like my photo? they look good right? Except that they SUCKED. They were terrible. Like the gross uncooked bit in the middle of french toast that you always slather in tomato sauce so you don’t have to feel the texture. Bleurgh. Master 7 took one bite, spat it out again (he’s not an egg fan and I may not have been very clear with him on the ingredients). Master 4 had two – liberally sprinkled with brown sugar – which by the way is the way the ‘healthy website’ recommended they be eaten because they know they suck too. I put four aside for the grumpy Dutchman figuring he’d eat anything and had to throw mine away because there wasn’t a single thing I could think of to add to them that I am allowed to eat. SO. Breakfast failure on day two. I ended up having the last two pieces of bread in the bag – waste not want not – and I just won’t buy anymore I promise. That crunchy tummy scratching peanut-butter toast never tasted so good. But I did miss the coffee I would have usually washed it down with…..

(Note – after reading this a few of my friends commented that they had made the pancakes and they liked them – major difference seems to be that they cooked them in butter and mashed instead of blended them – might try again later in the year if I pick dairy again 🙂 )

Last night for dinner I made a big roasted vege salad – this is my go-to if we go places and need to bring a contribution, it’s filling, jam packed full of veges and you can change it up, I also like to add things like salami, chicken, smoked salmon, avocado – depending on what’s around – if you weren’t avoiding dairy Feta is great in it too. And when there is only a few manky bits left in the bottom of the bowl I can throw them into the pan for breakfast with some eggs too – it’s an all-rounder!

I got the original recipe out of the ‘Allergy free cooking’ book by Dr Sue Shepherd, which specialise in recipes for folks who follow a low FODMAP diet, but I make alternate versions of it depending on who will be eating it because a lot of peeps don’t like Aubergine and I find garlic ‘infused’ olive oil weirdly hard to get at most stupidmarkets. Also I am not allowed nuts and seeds at the moment and my favourite used to be to throw some toasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds on it too. For last nights salad I roasted pumpkin, 3 colours of capsicum, courgette, sparrowgrass and green beans in olive oil and sea salt, then tossed up with baby spinach when done. I chopped some avocado into it as well – because YUM and it had the added bonus of pissing off the GD just that tiny bit more…. He hates avocado – it used to be something we bonded on – the only two people in the world who hated avocado but I have converted. He may never forgive me.

This morning I took the little lads to see my Nana, their Great Nana, in the hospital where she is for the moment. They were loud and ‘wrestly’ and playing with wholehearted abandon out in the grassy area – much to the conscious old folks delight – but not so much to some of the sicker folk and bedridden patients. In order to shut them up for fifteen minutes so I could hang with my favourite old grrl, I promised them Mad Mex for lunch. We have only tried this once as a fam in town and it was great – no sore tummy for me, lots of GF options and the kids were very excited. Today we went to the one in Ponsnobby because I knew I would get a carpark with everyone out of town.

Hmmm….. The realisation is dawning that the reason the boys loved it SOOO much the first time is because we let them have the ‘real authentic soda’ from Mexico. (Which btw all tastes the same – like SUGAR and masses of it – I had grapefruit and there was nothing sour about it). This time they had water. Not so great with spicy food. Also the sour faced queen who served us threw sour cream all over Sol’s kid nachos before anyone had time to blink so of course he refused to eat them. The girl who took over serving was better and she asked before she put anything on anything which was good – the good thing about Sol’s meal was that one kid eats free with grown up on Thursdays and Fridays so we chalked it up to experience (And when he was starving later he ate the whole congealed mess in the car).

I got the ‘Naked burrito’. which is naturally GF (and DF because I declined to have cheese and sour cream). I forgot about my raw food rule though and I think the DELICIOUS salsa combined with the medium heat chilli gave me a terrible tummy ache. Or maybe it was indigestion because it was so yummy I ate it pretty fast! Sad face. I came home and instead of taking the lads to the zoo as promised ended up sleeping and reading my book all afternoon. So. Note to self – take it easy on the Mexican for now – but later – might be a good option.

All in all, day two was pretty easy – as expected – having given up sugar and booze for 14 weeks at the start of 2014 I know what to expect really – headaches and body aches from the lack of sugar for the first two weeks but it’s the ‘bored eating’ that gets me. I was stricter last time and cut out fruit too – because it kicked off cravings – and the way I’ve been going through this bowl of plums today is pretty telling. No fruit tomorrow. And no I don’t count tomatoes in that restriction because how else would I make my delicious Avocado and Tomato salsa that goes with my breakfast omelette?!?

No bootcamp this week – holiday for our instructor, and Yoga was shut today – although my aching legs probably need a days rest to be honest after yesterdays effort – we’ll take the lads (all three) down to the beach after dinner and let them all have a big run. It’s so great living in this city – never more than twenty minutes from a decent beach – and the one tonight is five minutes away!